We are Pope!

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Front page of the Bild newspaper on the election of Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger on April 20, 2005

“We are Pope!” Was a headline in the Bild newspaper on April 20, 2005, one day after Cardinal Ratzinger was elected Pope . In the course of 2005 and the years that followed, the headline was quoted or modified many times on television and in the press, and quickly became a common phrase and a household word .

According to Bild's editor-in-chief Kai Diekmann , the headline was conceived by Georg Streiter , the paper's head of politics. Rhetorically, the sentence formation is based on similar we-statements such as the sentence “We are world champions ”, which is often heard at celebrations after winning soccer world championships . The headline is thus an example of the rhetorical stylistic device of totum pro parte and assumes a special identification of the German population with “their” Pope Benedict XVI. In the short report under the headline, the newspaper stated that Benedict was "the first German in 482 years on the Holy See".

effect

Just a week later, on April 27, 2005, Bild stated under the heading “A headline becomes cult” that its lead story was on the way to attaining cult status. However, the photo evidence printed by the Bild newspaper came from the satirical counteraction of a blog ; a graffito allegedly on a bridge "We are Pope", which the Bild newspaper had printed, was created through digital image processing .

The headline was quickly used in a modified form, for example by the magazine Der Spiegel , which headlined over a picture with Gerhard Schröder and Angela Merkel shortly after the federal election in 2005 : “We are Chancellor” , and by Petra Pau , who moved in early January 2006 in a press release with the words “We are Prussia!” turned against Matthias Platzeck's call for Prussian virtues .

The Society for German Language put the phrase "We are Pope!" In second place among the ten words of 2005, because it is linguistically memorable and reflected a certain mood in the population. In addition, it was later used for language games. The Art Directors Club for Germany awarded Bild a gold and a silver nail for the design of the newspaper and the text of the “We are Pope!” Edition.

The music duo Urbi & Orbi released the single Wir sind Papst! , which was represented in the lower echelons of the German charts for six weeks. “We are Pope!” Was picked up again and again by cabaret artists and satirists , mostly together with the campaign slogan “ You are Germany ”. For example, Hagen Rether speculated that if the Pope died, the Bild newspaper would probably headline “We're dead!”. The Bavarian comedian Michael Mittermeier, however, announced that it was not “you Germans” but “we Bavarians” that were Pope. The Turkish-born satirist Osman Engin took in his magazine article Ich bin Pope for the WDR as an opportunity to make the "often absurd situations when dealing with supposed foreigners" clear. It was for the Civis Media Prize of the ARD excellent.

The attempt by Bild-Zeitung to register the phrase as a word mark was rejected by the Munich Trademark and Patent Office in November 2006. According to the opinion of the court, such a mark offends against morality: "If the term Pope - as Christ's representative - is used for sales purposes, believers could be offended by it".

During the Austrian EU Presidency in the first half of 2006, the picture headline was converted into the headline “We are President!” By some Austrian media.

The headline was picked up in 2007 as well. After the German women's national soccer team had won the World Cup, the headline was “We are World Champions!”, And in October the newspaper headlined “We are Nobel Prize!” After the two Nobel Prizes for German researchers.

The awarding of the Oscars for the best foreign language film in 2007 to Florian Henckel von Donnersmarck (Germany) for The Lives of Others and in 2008 to Stefan Ruzowitzky (Austria) for Die Fälscher led many media outlets to say: “We are Oscar”.

In connection with Pope Benedict's lifting of the excommunication of four bishops of the Pius Brotherhood on January 21, 2009, the saying We are Pope has been questioned or varied several times in the public debate. On February 2, 2009 , the taz headlined “We are embarrassing. The strange decisions of Pope Benedict XVI. ” Furthermore, the title of an edition of the talk show Maybrit Illner on February 5, 2009 read “ Are we still Pope? Religion in reverse? "And the publicist Henryk M. Broder summarized this phenomenon in Spiegel Online with the words" We were all Pope a moment ago, now we are breaking the baton over the pontiff. "

On the occasion of the Pope's visit to Germany in 2011 , the picture title page from April 20, 2005 was attached as a 2880 square meter print to the facade of the Axel Springer high-rise in Berlin.

literature

  • Holger Fröhlich: “We are Pope!” The auctoritas of the Pope in the Bildzeitung . ” Tectum Verlag, Marburg 2010, ISBN 978-3-8288-2427-0 .

Web links

Supporting documents

  1. ↑ Front pages: "We are Pope!" Spiegel photo series to the press coverage of April 20, 2005, accessed on October 28, 2017.
  2. ↑ Bildblog, April 27, 2005
  3. ^ Die Presse Variations of "Echt" ( Memento from May 5, 2005 in the Internet Archive ) May 4, 2005
  4. ↑ Press portal: “We are Prussia!” , January 3, 2006
  5. ↑ Picture , March 26, 2006 ( Memento from March 31, 2006 in the Internet Archive )
  6. ↑ https://bildblog.de/1854/paepstlicher-als-bild/
  7. ^ Wiener Zeitung : "The highest form of recognition" , May 3, 2006 (accessed on November 25, 2013)
  8. ^ BR-online - We are Oscar ... ( Memento from April 3, 2007 in the Internet Archive )
  9. ↑ ORF Steiermark - We are Oscar - Yes, of course!
  10. ^ Headline of the Berlin taz on February 2, 2009; see also the article Ogott, ogottogott! Where is Ratzinger taking the Catholic Church? by Philipp Gessler in the daily newspaper , February 2, 2009 ( memento of August 29, 2010 in the Internet Archive ).
  11. ↑ Information on the broadcast of February 5, 2009 on the Maybrit Illner website
  12. ^ Henryk M. Broder: Vatican debacle: Pope in the pillory in Spiegel Online , February 5, 2009.
  13. ↑ http://www.bild.de/news/inland/papst-benedikt/bild-begruesst-papst-mit-riesen-poster-19987108.bild.html